At last, Civil War is over! Well, apart from the four titles with the words “Civil War” in their title and the many tie-ins still trickling out. Annihilation is over too. Apart from the Heralds of Galactus post-mini mini.

It may just be me, but this Daredevil cover is actually pretty clever. Or, at least an amusing, ironic joke.

Marvel Legacy: The 1990s Handbook is scheduled to come out. Finally, you can learn all you ever wanted to know about Vengenance! And Sleepwalker! And Lunatik! And a bunch of other characters only appearing in this book so that Marvel can renew the trademark.

This not at all homoerotic cover is to a Baron Zemo mini spinning off of the end of Civil War. It also seems to be an attempt to not make the same mistake as the last drastic change in tone and style to Thunderbolts. The one that drove the entire audience for the book away. This way, fans of the book as it exists now get something to tide them over until the next “bold new direction” hits the regular book, or Warren Ellis gets bored with it. Whichever comes first.

I count eleven X-Men titles. No witty comment there, just an observation.

The prospect of an evil Katie Power is almost enough to get me to pick up Spider-Man and Power Pack. It won’t be enough. But it almost is.

On the Marvel trade front, Annihilation gets a “volume 1″ hardcover, collecting two of the mini lead-ins, while two books collecting Civil War cross-overs get hard-cover trades as well. There’s also another Civil War trade collecting “prologue” stories.
We’re never going to see the days when a cross-over can fit in one trade again, are we?

$20 for the first six issues of the superlative All Star Superman in hard-cover format sounds like a good deal to me.

This cover to Superman #661 is also very pretty.
Although the idea of a special 3-D supplement to that month’s Action is perhaps the return of one gimmick too many.

Superman/Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told reprints the recent Superman/Batman Annual. Seriously? Because it was a cute story, but pretty damn far from one of the “greatest” stories featuring those two.

All-New Atom #8 contains what I think may be a first for a DC comic: exposed penis on the cover.
I mean, it’s been awhile since I cracked open a book on human anatomy, but I’m fairly familiar with the things, and that looks like half of one to me.
Expect some careful text placement on the final cover.

Retro trades this month include another volume of Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, a Showcase Presents volume for Hawkman, and a second volume for House of Mystery.

Mark Waid and George Perez launch a new version of The Brave and The Bold, with the promise of crossing over as many different DC characters as possible now. In a discussion with someone the other day, I mentioned that lately DC seems to be all about “playing in the sandbox with all the toys.” There seems to be a concentrated effort to use as many different characters in as many different contexts as they can manage. Stuff like this is emblematic of that approach to comics publishing.

I’m not usually one to complain about the costumes of female super-heroes. I have one rule of thumb, which is this: if I can tell she uses a depilatory, she probably needs more fabric on her costume, especially between her waist and her knees. Alex Ross apparently does not feel the same way:
And people thought Supergirl flying around in a mini-skirt was pushing the good taste envelope on costumes. “Cyclone” isn’t even bothering to wear panties. Lord, I hope she’s not a flyer.
Ross has done this sort of thing before, try to sneak a “naughty” image onto a cover. It never really seems “clever” to me, which is what I think he thinks he’s going for.
(See also: Steven’s take on this cover. And watch When Fangirls Attack for further coverage. Er, so to speak.)

The long awaited Jeff Smith Shazam series comes out, Monster Society of Evil.
And how do typical comics fans react? They complain about the price point. I don’t know, given that most other companies are charging about eight bucks are so for perfect bound books of the same page count with ads, $6 doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. Especially given that DC is probably under-pricing it, knowing that the real sales on something like this are going to be on the hard-cover, soft-cover, and Absolute Edition collections. Especially when bookstore buyers and book fairs, the places where Smith’s Bone has been a big seller, get ahold of it.

This is a very pretty cover for Wonder Woman #5.
And if you think for a moment that it will ship in February, I’ve got a bridge you might like to buy.

I’m a sucker for these “everybody on one team match up and fight their ideological opposite on the other team” types of covers.
Y’know, for a character who is supposed to be evil now, Batgirl keeps showing up in her costume an awful lot.

CMX has two new titles, Time Guardian, which sounds like a slightly girlier version of xxxHolic, and Go Go Heaven, about a girl given 49 extra days of life by the king of Hell, who spies on her from her dollhouse.
That sounds just twisted enough to possibly be good.